NEW YORK — I hopped off the subway at Penn Station on a drizzly Saturday evening expecting a big-game atmosphere.
The PWHL had signaled a sell-out of the N.Y. Sirens-Seattle Torrent game at Madison Square Garden that night, which would set a attendance record (18,006) for women’s hockey in the U.S. Befitting the event’s historic nature, PWHL advisory board members Stan Kasten and Billie Jean King addressed reporters 90 minutes before puck drop.
“It’s hard not to get choked up,” Kasten said to a standing-room audience of local and national press, reflecting on what he and King said is ahead-of-schedule growth for the league. “We were not forecasting this in year three.”
This was more than an attendance figure on paper. It was a major-sport playoff atmosphere.
A ‘hometown’ game with national enthusiasm
Walking the concourse pregame, the longest lines — without close competition — were for merchandise. One queue on the 100-level stretched almost two sections and wrapped around on itself, creating congestion in the walkway, about 15 minutes before the game.
The items at these stands skewed toward the home team, with Sirens jerseys ($100-$225), hoodies ($80), shirts ($70), hats ($40-45) and bobbleheads ($25) taking up the majority of shelf space. PWHL and USA Hockey apparel were also on sale, and the league debuted two pieces of limited-edition merchandise: an “Everyone Watches Women’s Hockey” T-shirt ($50) in collaboration with Togethxr, and Sirens-at-Madison Square Garden-specific sweatshirts ($80). I toured several stands again during the second intermission to find the latter two items long sold out. (As Rachel said, give the fans what they want — merch!)
An aerial view from MSG’s 10th-floor press bridge confirmed a Sirens-heavy crowd. A sea of teal-and-orange was dotted sporadically with the Torrent’s forest-green or Team USA’s red, white and blue, and organizers made creative use of the arena lighting system by projecting Sirens branding over N.Y. Rangers branding on the ice, leftover from a game earlier that day. Sirens fans have a signature chant — “Let’s go Sirens, wee-woo, wee-woo!” — and relished a fight during the first period. The crowd also ignited during pregame introductions, when the Sirens tied the game in the third period and as the buzzer sounded on a shootout victory. (Hear some of these moments for yourself in this thread.)
The PWHL, for its part, leaned into the spectacle.
King, her wife and fellow PWHL advisory board member Ilana Kloss, and LSU G Flau’jae Johnson participated in a ceremonial puck drop. Sirens sponsor Sprouts Farmers Market passed out commemorative postcards, and a QR code shown on the center-hung videoboard after the confirmed attendance was announced redirected fans to a downloadable social media graphic showing they were there. Celebrities displayed on that main videoboard included Rangers captain J.T. Miller (with one of his daughters), newscaster Robin Roberts, boxer Amanda Serrano, actor Skylar Astin, American hockey star Caroline Harvey, retired American soccer star Kelley O’Hara and players from the NWSL’s Gotham FC and Women’s Elite Rugby’s N.Y. Exiles. Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” blaring after the final horn was a fitting flourish to close the night.
25% YOY attendance jump
It was a seminal moment, but not spontaneous. Saturday marked the fifth time the PWHL has set an attendance record in this, its third season, which has seen the league’s overall average attendance rise 25% year-over-year to more than 9,000 a game. Several of the more than 75 sponsors that cover the league and its teams — e.l.f. Beauty (which also dropped product giveaways from the ceiling during the game), Gatorade, Air Canada, Scotiabank, FanDuel, Global Industrial, Woody Creek Distillers, Bread Financial and Midea — were plastered along the boards.
And there were reminders that, while Kasten says the league is still in “startup phase” and taking losses as it invests in the product, their standards are professional grade: As one example, a drone camera whizzed by the press bridge on several occasions and figured into some dynamic shots on the broadcast.
Answering a question from SBJ about the state of the PWHL’s overall business and the importance of nights like Saturday to its trajectory, Kasten said definitively that the league is “ready to expand” and will have news on this front in the next few weeks. The league played its 2025-26 season with eight teams, adding Seattle and Vancouver to its six markets from 2024-25, and league EVP/Business Operations Amy Scheer has said it will add two-to-four more.
In other words, expect more nights like Saturday ahead.
